Preventative Wellness Tips for a Happier Life

There’s no doubt that health plays a huge factor into a person’s overall quality of life. Even the happiest, most neurotypical person will feel weighed down eventually by chronic illness or pain, which affects about 20 percent of Americans. If you’re a person who is in good health, it’s best to not only be grateful for it, but to actively work to prevent illness from coming into your life. Here you will find tips for a happier life.

Tips for a Happier Life

One of the most important ways to make this happen is to always listen to your body’s needs. Good nutrition, regular exercise, enough sleep, and keeping your mental health in check all play a vital part in your general well-being. By making sure you are addressing your needs in each of these areas, you’re more likely to live a happier and healthier life.

Positive Diet Modifications

One life aspect that often gets pushed aside due to financial reasons or a busy schedule is a person’s diet. The food you put in your body is the fuel you give your body to run on. If you’re not eating the right foods to attain the proper vitamins and minerals for your body run at its best, you’re likely to notice it eventually. Therefore, if you want to live a happier life, start by adjusting your diet to healthy sources of vitamins, minerals, and overall nutrients.

A balanced diet leads to a healthier and happier life because it makes your body feel good. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, only 10 percent of Americans get their recommended intake of fruits and vegetables. This means that 90 percent of Americans are not giving their bodies the nutrients they need to be healthy, or at least not from the proper sources. There is a direct correlation between a person’s health and their diet, and those who partake in unhealthy eating habits have a higher chance of developing a chronic illness.

Therefore, it’s best to be mindful of your diet in order to avoid illness and continue living happily. For those who already suffer from chronic illness, adjusting your diet could help reduce your symptoms, which could provide some relief from your chronic illness. In the U.S., about 20 percent of people suffer from Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD), which often causes daily symptoms. However, by avoiding drinks that trigger symptoms, like coffee, tea, alcohol, and carbonated beverages; or foods that are fried or spicy, as well as some citrus fruits like tomatoes and onions, GERD symptoms could be reduced.

Lifestyle Modifications

In general, your lifestyle contributes to your overall levels of wellness and happiness. Lifestyles entail everything in your life that contributes to your physical, mental, and spiritual health. By honing in on what you need in life to be happy, and creating healthy habits that will be good for your body and peace of mind, you can start to thrive more than ever before.

Exercise

An aspect of health that people often neglect is exercise. Similar to a person’s diet, exercise is put on the backburner in response to busy schedules and more enjoyable activities. While a person doesn’t need to exercise everyday to be happy, it’s a healthy habit that will have a positive influence on your body and mind if you do it often enough. However, it’s also important to listen to your body, and if you’re someone with physical limitations, avoiding strenuous activity may be for the best.

Exercise is also helpful in preventing future illness by addressing physical areas that tend to cause problems when they don’t get enough use. Poor posture can often cause back problems and pain when a person gets older, but there are some simple exercises that can help improve posture to avoid this. These include planks, which keep your back muscles strong; crunches with a twist and dumbbell side bends, which both help strengthen your core to keep you from slumping forward, and many more.

For people who suffer from chronic illness in particular, studies show that spirituality plays an important part in a person’s emotional wellbeing, and helps them cope with stress.

Tracking Our Health Goals

One way to make it easier to dedicate time and effort to personal preventative care is to use digital apps to track our personal health habits and goals. In 2015, 259,000 health and lifestyle apps were available for consumers around the world to download and use. Although the uses for these apps vary greatly, and can be used for anything from specific illness to general support and exercise tracking, they help users take their health into their own hands and can make it easier to set personal goals.

Runkeeper: this app tracks and maps your runs and keeps a record of the measurable factors that occurred during each run so you can determine the best routes for you.

Shopwell: this is an app that will help you stick to a healthy eating plan by letting you enter lifestyle goals and helping you to stay on track by sending reminders.

Runtastic: this app monitors the daily factors that contribute to the quality of your sleep so you can attempt to change activities that deter your ability to get good sleep.

Headspace: this meditation app will help you form meditation habits by prompting you to meditate each day; and this habit can help improve your mental and spiritual health.

Working on preventative health can help contribute to a happier life by making you feel proactive about your overall health. Whether you’re modifying your diet, improving your lifestyle habits, working towards personal health goals, or all three, working on self-improvement can do wonders for your mental health. As you do so, you’ll help your body gain strength by giving it what it needs to thrive; and a healthy mind and body lead to a happier life.

We hope you enjoyed this article and invite you to share your own tips for a happier life in the comment section below.